Even with a 44-point lead, Bill de Blasio is determined to avoid discussing his differences with GOP rival Joe Lhota.
Instead he’s released a new ad accusing Lhota of unholy (and unspecified) “ties” to the Republican “right wing” and the “Tea Party.”
Think about that.
De Blasio is the one who posits a tale of two New Yorks, a tale in which he is the champion of the poor and the powerless. You would think a candidate who believed that message would be pounding home his policies.
But that would be risky.
If, for example, de Blasio had to go into detail about his plans for more affordable housing, he might have to address why similar plans have failed to deliver in every other city where they’ve been tried. If he wanted to discuss education, he might have to answer why he’s siding with the teachers unions, which want to keep failing schools open and prevent good schools — charters — from opening. And if he spoke about his plan to hike taxes on the rich, he’d have to explain how that’s going to get through Albany when the governor is pushing for tax relief.
You wouldn’t know it from de Blasio, but Lhota has criticized the Tea Party over the government shutdown. And his libertarian positions on issues such as gay marriage, abortion and legalizing pot hardly place him among the ranks of the GOP’s social conservatives.
All of which might have cleared the way for a real argument about the best policies for New York’s future.
Instead, de Blasio has opted for the cheap out, pinning Lhota to a Tea Party that is not a factor here. And let’s not miss the real message de Blasio is sending by presenting even the modest limits on government Lhota proposes as “extreme”: Elect me mayor, and we will spend, tax and regulate this city back to the 1970s.